Cover Image: Instructions for a Funeral

Instructions for a Funeral

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Member Reviews

A couple of the stories in this book were absolutely amazing. A couple of them seemed to miss me completely. All in all, in was a good, quick read.

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I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I will say this for David Means: boy can he write a beautifully complicated sentence. I read two of David Means' short story collections back when I was in high school, and they were very influential for me at the time. It might have been my impressionable young brain, it might have been the amazing stories, or more likely, a combination of the two. While I enjoyed reading this book, I wouldn't say it was influential; in fact, even though I enjoyed the reading experience I can barely tell you at this point what any of the stories were actually about.

The only story I vividly remember was the book's title story, "Instructions for a Funeral." It was lovely.

All in all, worth reading but not life-changing.

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'The problem is, my son sees the man I am now and not the men I was before I became the man I am not.'

I have conflicted feelings about this collection of stories. The best of it for me is in Fatherhood, The Problematic Father, “…the fact that my father was highly problematic at times came in part from that fact that he was dealing with me.” Have any truer words ever been spoken? We also don’t see all the versions of our fathers, who they were before they became simply, Dad. I think sometimes in reading we expect men to express the way they feel about their children and fatherhood in the same way mothers do and fault them for their genuine thoughts. How do you explain how it feels being a man, particularly a father, one who can “bear up under certain responsibilities”, about the limitations.

In Farewell, My Brother there is a line about a man named Frankie, ‘he’s one of those who came lumbering out of the vapor, his sway and his sea-dog talk marking him as an anomaly.’ What a gorgeous way to paint the picture for readers, David Means can certainly give life to his characters. His is a keen eye into decline, ruin. I feel a deep sense of detachment moving through so many of the characters, that hopeless feeling of pointlessness. There is suffering, sure, anyone alive suffers but even meeting the pulsing source, the cause which so much of the time is the life we’re living, doesn’t change much for us. Life can feel like a mystery illness sometimes.

Carver and Cobain… “his mind is impenetrable, untraceable step by step through those last moments”, which makes me think, in many ways, our minds are always like that, because we never can really express our pain, nor our joy whether we’re an award-winning author or ill-fated grunge star, can we? For Cobain it’s the end… the end… the end, isn’t it? Chronic pain, addiction only those living inside of it can understand the compulsion to obliterate it all. Is there a moment of regret at the very end, shocked awake when it’s too late?

It’s not that the writing is too intelligent for most readers, and there are depths to explore, but not all stories flowed, and I hate saying that because there is serious storytelling in here. In Rockland, the senseless ache, the realization that no amount of ‘humiliation’ will necessarily be a cure. You want to fuel that hope for your loved one, but it’s dying, a brother is trapped in a loop of his own addiction, and how do you find joy in the possibility of ‘flight’ as a means to an end to all that suffering. Some of us will never find our path, are fated to be lost in ourselves be it addiction or mental illness, even worse a combination of the two. For all the upbeat talk, the centers, the group homes, the medications and therapies, promises of salvation, for the moments light seems to return to our loved ones, outside in the real world the limitations of reality are waiting for our beloved to break themselves against all over again. The writing is astute but some readers may find the delivery difficult to follow.

Publication Date: March 5, 2019

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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I typically like short story collections, though this one did not resonate with me. I found the point of view overtly male, and too prose-heavy for the short fiction form. I was intrigued by the description of the pieces included, though the execution was not what I anticipated or hoped. Took me as long to get through this 200 page collection as it would a book twice the length.

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The title and cover intrigued me greatly, but I was disappointed when I began reading. The writing was a bit convoluted and the unnecessary wordiness made it difficult to dive in and lose myself in the moment. The killer nurse one intrigued me, but then it was over before it really began. I think if it was streamlined and more concise, it would be more readable, but I'm guessing that's the author's writing style. It's just not my reading style.

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Eh... I just couldn’t get into this one. Others may like it; it just couldn’t hold my attention.

I would like to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Instructions for a Funeral is the fifth short story collection from Man Booker-prize nominated author David Means. This new collection contains 14 previously published stories including “Two Ruminations on a Homeless Brother” (New Yorker, 5/17), “El Morro” (New Yorker, 8/11), “The Tree Line, Kansas, 1934” (New Yorker, 10/10) and the stand-out “The Terminal Artist” (Vice, 6/15). Part-journalism, if it were real, Means tells of the sudden death of a loved one from surgical complications, revealed years later as the probable victim of a serial-killing nurse.

Each story lives as it’s own beast – a testament to Means’ years of practice. In “The Chair” he tackles the tenderness and anxiety of new fatherhood; in “Fistfight, Sacramento, August 1950” a fist-fight unfolds in slow motion and resolves into a life-long love story and includes the hilarious, if awkwardly prioritized, sentence: “Punch me first, you two-bit dirt hopper, toss the first one at me and let’s get this started so I can get home and take a nice, long, warm bath.”

Means’ characters are hardened, sardonic, hopeful and full of worry – sort of distinctly American in their takes on the various situations life has thrown at them. In the titular story, a man leaves instructions for his funeral that reveal a compounding paranoia of organized crime and shady real estate ventures that reminds one of those hasty bad-parent obituaries.

Because there’s no unifying theme, this isn’t the kind of collection you can sit down and read it one sitting and really appreciate. The stories are layered and complex, as they should be, though to run through several might prove exhausting. Some, like “The Tree Line” did read easy until I’d read a paragraph a few times and even then, it wasn’t a favorite; others like “The Terminal Artist” resonated with me quickly. Don’t rush the stories into your own timeline – read and let them linger.

Netgalley provided this copy in exchange for review.

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"Instructions for a Funeral" is the fifth collection of stories by David Means. After reading his last collection, "The Spot", and his only novel, "Hystopia", I was really looking forward to delving into these stories. Unfortunately it was a tough journey. Most of the things I really liked about his works that I previously read, i.e. the weirdness, is all buy gone in these stories. Instead we are given a collection of stories that are deep in contemplation and idea but shallow in action and even character in most cases. Even though the collection is slightly over 200 pages, it felt so long because the reading is slow. The sentences are long, and the paragraphs are longer, most of them being so knotted that we have to spend a great deal of time either trying to untie them and figure out what Means is trying to convey or just keep on moving. These situations ran about 50/50 for me. There are many stories I did not care about enough to work hard to figure out the nuances. Many of the stories run into the same situation and they break down like this:

1. Two men are talking. No more than two. Some are friends. Some are strangers. Some are friends by circumstance. Most are married, but the wives have no part of these stories, unless they are lost due to some action the man now regrets and is the reason for the discussion with the other man.

2. Many of these men while listening are looking at nature, sometimes the trees but most of the time the river. Not only are they looking at it, but they are distracted by it, as if they cannot focus on anything because their surrounding are too magnificent to really keep the narrative.

3. Many of the narrators of the overall story is not the talker in these two men and the stories are told in retrospect, with a little bit of a hint of the future. We come to understand these are memories most of the time, but there is not much development besides the narrator saying that it is a memory.

4. Many do not have conclusion of action as much as conclusion of thought.

Some of these stories vary a little but not too much. I do not know if this is Means's way of working through a problem in his mind, worrying the same rock until it is smooth, but I hope that his next collection has a bit more variety and interesting stories than this one. I will continue to read him, and he is one of America's best writers, but this is not a great collection to illustrate this.

I received an ARC of this collection through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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a Story that was nothing like I expected. diving into family, parenthood, drugs and addiction. I was a little thrown by the development. The serial killer nurse and the police just didn't draw me in.

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I received an advance copy of this new David Means book of short stories. I was previously unaware of him or his work and I am not sure that I'll bother to pursue any more after trudging my way through this collection. I see that he branched out briefly from short stories to write a novel that was nominated for the Man Booker. Perhaps that one is worth a look. Means has quite the résumé and I feel like I should have liked this a lot more than I did. The title story was dark and funny and okay, and I also liked "The Terminal Artist" about a serial-killer nurse. But I spent so much time going through this collection like running in the pool. So much work for so little satisfaction and often seeming to get nowhere. Then one day I was clicking through the Guardian online and came across this Tom Gauld comic and thought yep. But what do I know. Anyway, thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the review copy.

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I could not get myself to finish this book. I tried to push through it in the hopes that I would be able to piece the collection of essays together, maybe find one that really stuck out to me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. First off, I found myself having to read the introduction pages over and over again. The writing is much too run-on and messy for my liking.

The author shoves too much into one sentence to make it feel like there is any cohesive outcome. It was an unorganized collection of essays in my opinion.

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I couldn't finish this book. There was nothing about the story or the characters that appealed to me.

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An inconsistent collection of short stories that showed off the author’s range but ultimately failed to hold my interest.

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Looking back on all you accomplished in your life you may have regrets and wisdom but in this book there are several stories conveyed to describe key momentts, including instruction for his funeral. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I thought I would given the author pedigree but it was very quick pace and well written

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Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of Instructions For a Funeral.

I did like some of the stories more than others, however it really just wasn’t my type book. I just couldn’t stay with it. I tried many times, again, I don’t think it was bad by any means, just not my type of reading. The extremely long sentences just bothered me after while. Perhaps the author wanted it to be as if it was their stream of consciousness/thoughts? Whatever the reason, it just wasn’t for me. I do appreciate the chance to read it though, thank you for that.

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Instructions for a Funeral is a collection of short stories. The topics include parenting, loss, infidelity, and finding love. I liked some stories more than others. One of my favorites describes a fist fight between two guys, and you get flashbacks of both characters as the fight continues, learning more of their backstory and what lead them to this moment. The namesake story is just as described - a man giving very detailed instructions for his eventual funeral, including making speculations about who killed him if it was not from natural causes. Pretty entertaining 😏
This book is being published on March 5th, 2019. Thank you to @netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for a review. #netgalley #bookreview #instructionsforafuneral

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I gave this several tries, but as with the author's previous work, was unable to penetrate it. It just wasn't for me.

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I’ve never read a book where the length of the sentences and paragraphs are inversely proportional to the length of the story. I’m not sure if the author is writing this as stream of consciousness or just does not know what a period is. Beautiful, descriptive writing, but please get to the point already is what I kept saying to myself. Fortunately, these are short stories, so each one did come to an end rather quickly. The writing is not particularly difficult and I pretty much slogged through all the stories. They were a little too cerebral, meandering and self-reflecting for my taste. Admittedly, I do not read many short story collections. This collection may make me read even fewer.

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I very much enjoyed these stories. The collection seems to be part philosophy - very meta (a writer writing about writing or a narrator narrating about thinking about past thoughts) and part psychological - the characters process their own thoughts and actions in an interestingly developed way. The sentences are long and sometimes labyrinthine, but they are plenty descriptive. Means does a great job getting into the minds of the characters to dissect motivations and desires, whether positive or negative, and is unbiased in their portrayals.

Some stories have repetitive phrases that initially turned me off (I think I thought, So to speak, etc). It was distracting at first but as I kept reading I realized it was pretty much isolated to their own stories. I was also turned off by the style of writing at first, but I became accustomed after the third story and found it enjoyable through the end.

The Mighty Shannon, The Butler's Lament, and The Terminal Artist were my top three.

Thank you to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an advance reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.​

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I was incredibly bored through the whole thing. I feel so sad when my only thought through a book is DNF DNF DNF.

It wasn't for me at all. But I'm sure someone out there will like it.

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